Tag: byzantine

Roman Theater in Plovdiv Reading Plovdiv’s history, I imagine a regal figure enduring a continual costume change, its integrity as eternal as its ancient walls. Little old Plovdiv, Bulgaria, is the oldest continuously occupied city in Europe. It’s so old it fell to Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon, who gave it one of its ancient names: Philippopolis. Some […]

ITS ALL ALIVE The date of this angel is probably slightly after 1261. That’s when the re-enfranchised Eastern Christians of Constantinople dug up Henri Dandolo and threw him out the window of Hagia Sophia, officially ending the sixty-year Roman Catholic aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. You remember Dandolo, don’t you? The old blind Doge of Venice who told the Fourth Crusade […]

Hagia Sophia: Just check out that inlay work above the pillars around the upper alcoves! I always loved whirligigs and so did the Emperor Justinian. St Catherine was one of his patron saints, and we find Catherine Wheels everywhere in Hagia Sophia, fabulous inlaid stonwork predating that in the Taj Mahal by 1000 years. Justinian and his Empress, Theodora, began […]

St Irene in Pala d’Oro Altarpiece, St Mark’s, Venice RELENTLESS BEAUTY That there are faces at all on the walls of Hagia Sophia is due largely to Empress Irene of Athens, who ruled Byzantium at the turn of the eighth century to the ninth. Notice her shield and cross: she was a kind of warrior. PORTALS TO POWER Irene’s Emperor, Leo IV, […]

THE CASTLE ON THE HILL Sweeping up the hill, at the center of the drawing above, is the ruin of St John’s Basilica. At the right is Ayasuluk, a 6000-year-old Paleolithic hilltop settlement. Here’s a Medieval rendition: Subsequent civilizations have left artifacts still being excavated: chapels, baths, tombs. The sixth-century Byzantine castle is built on Hitttite bones. The castle walls […]

THE BLIND LEADING THE MIND There were two sides to the Christian church: the Catholics in a collection of city-states in Italy, and the Eastern Roman Christians– we call them Byzantines– an empire ruled from Constantinople. Venice, in Italy, looked longingly over at the glorious city of Constantinople, bastion of the Eastern Roman Church and very, very rich. The two factions […]

5th century AD: Furious clamor as police descend on Constantinople’s Chalkoprateia, the Bronze District, where Jewish artisans live, creating and selling bronze items. Screaming in outrage, bearded Jews in caps are dragged from their shops, beaten, banished. An earlocked apprentice frantically holds up an unfinished bronze shield in futile defense as Imperial soldiers burst into the workshop. The synagogue is […]

Tunnels under Hagia Sophia? Here’s my experience with one of them. The bridal processional walks singing along Akbiyik Street, trailing clouds of incense. Between rows of arches and marble columns, through hotels and hostels, bars and cafes and shops, the grand company spirals up through the bad bald renovation of the Stairway of Lord, chanting with every step, and continues […]

THE GRAND BAZAAR I’ll never forget the first time I saw it. I was with a bunch of other tourists, at a dead run, trying to keep up with Mike. WITH MIKE IN THE GRAND BAZAAR We charge at breakneck pace through a big arched gate, down a promenade lined with cheap fezzes and fake harem stuff, past […]

ST JOHN’S BASILICA looks like it has been picked up and dropped. The vast rambling ruin of St John’s Basilica was demolished by earthquake, ravaged by marauders, scavenged by later builders. Huge jagged chunks of sixth-century masonry rear at improbable angles. Columns march in all directions, supporting nothing, reassembled and re-erected by the Turkish Government. Hordes of Christian pilgrims stagger in […]

LYCIAN TOMBS & BURNING CITIES Have you ever seen Perge? A plain, under an endless sky, littered with the broken remnants of a city old when Alexander came. There’s a big square stone gate, and through it the remains of a huge fountain: chunks of carved stone balanced on either side; and beyond that an expanse of broken columns, some […]

VISUAL HISTORY During difficult times I seek solace in history. It’s the only thing quiets my mind. The world has ended so many times, and yet here we still are. I love living in Istanbul because a lot of the old stuff still looks old. I can actually see the evidence of centuries on these monumental witnesses to cataclysm and triumph. I draw […]